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The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies

Online ISBN:
9780199940691
Print ISBN:
9780195388947
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies

Trevor Pinch (ed.),
Trevor Pinch
(ed.)
Science and Technology, Cornell University
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Trevor Pinch is Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University, and author or co-author of several books including Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer (2002, with Frank Trocco) and The Golem at Large: What You Should Know About Technology (1993, 1998, with Harry Collins).

Karin Bijsterveld (ed.)
Karin Bijsterveld
(ed.)
Science, Technology and Modern Culture, Maastricht University
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Karin Bijsterveld is Professor of Science, Technology and Modern Culture at Maastricht University. She is author of Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century (2008), and co-editor of Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices (2009, with Jose van Dijck).

Published online:
21 November 2012
Published in print:
2 December 2011
Online ISBN:
9780199940691
Print ISBN:
9780195388947
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies offers new and engaging perspectives on the significance of sound in its material and cultural forms. The book considers sounds and music as experienced in such diverse settings as shop floors, laboratories, clinics, design studios, homes, and clubs, across an impressively broad range of historical periods and national and cultural contexts. Science has traditionally been understood as a visual matter, a study which has historically been undertaken with optical instruments such as slides, graphs, and telescopes. This book questions that notion powerfully by illustrating how sounds have always been a part of human experience, shaping and transforming the world in which we live in ways that often go unnoticed. Sounds and music, the articles argue, are embedded in the fabric of everyday life, art, commerce, and politics in ways which impact our perception of the world. Through a diverse set of case studies, articles illustrate how sounds—from the sounds of industrialization, to the sounds of automobiles, to sounds in underwater music and hip-hop, to the sounds of nanotechnology—give rise to new forms listening practices. In addition, the book discusses the rise of new public problems such as noise pollution, hearing loss, and intellectual property and privacy issues that stem from the spread and appropriation of new sound and music-related technologies, analog and digital, in many domains of life.

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